EV Battery Maker Claims 1,000 Miles per Charge

An Israel-based battery company has demonstrated an aluminum-air chemistry that it claims can deliver as much as 1,000 miles per charge to electric cars.

Clean technology company Phinergy, teaming with Alcoa, demonstrated the new electric car battery on a racetrack in Montreal this week in association with the Canadian International Aluminum Conference. At the demonstration, the two companies suggested the new technology would be used as an electric car range extender, in conjunction with a small conventional lithium-ion battery.

Alcoa and Phinergy demonstrated an EV battery chemistry that they claim can deliver 1,000 miles on a single charge. (Source: Alcoa)

”One of the downsides of any electric vehicle today is that there is range anxiety associated with it,” Ray Kilmer, chief technology officer of Alcoa, tells Design News. “This breaks that paradigm. It gives you the best combination of lithium-ion for normal usage and on-demand aluminum-air for greater range when you need it.”

Aluminum-air chemistry has been available for decades and has seen use in military applications. It works by combining aluminum with ambient air and water, and is known for potentially offering high energy density. The video below shows a vehicle fitted with Phinergy’s battery being charged with water, and then driving 330 km on a single charge.

Aviv Tzidon, founder and CEO of Phinergy, tells Design News that the company’s current aluminum-air battery checks in at 300 Wh/kg at the pack level. He adds, however, that the company is ultimately targeting a specific energy of 1,000 Wh/kg, along with a pack-level cost of less than $100/kWh.

Each of the battery’s aluminum plates can provide about 20 miles of range, Phinergy said. With 50 plates, the aluminum-air chemistry reaches a total of 1,000 miles, according to the companies. (Source: Alcoa)

If those numbers can ever be reached, they would be a big improvement over those of today’s lithium-ion batteries. Current lithium-ion batteries are typically rated from 150 to 240 Wh/kg at the cell level, and far less at the pack level. Cost is estimated at figures ranging from $300 Wh/kg to $450 Wh/kg by various analysts.

@DrQuine, I agree with you. cost will play a major role in whether people will adopt this technology or not. If the cost of driving 1000 miles is significantly less then people will adopt this technology.

The discussion associated with this article is a wonderful demonstration of the benefits of blog discussions. While the headline promised a new paradigm in electric vehicles, the discussion revealed that the aluminum-air battery is not rechargeable, self discharges, and has an unknown cost. Buying a battery to drive 1,000 miles isn't quite so tempting.

Might be worth pointing out that the entire battery does not have to be replaced; only the aluminum anodes and wherever the spent aluminum oxide is stored.

So, at least potentially, this could be an operation not that different from buying a tank of gas "back when". Pull into an equipped service station, the attendant removes the spent anode pack and AlOH3 receptacle (with the help of a purpose-made crane), and replaces them with fresh ones. The removed components get recycled (with the addition of electricity) and used in the next car.

Definitely a different paradigm (are we still allowed to use that word?) but potentially workable I think.

Yes, I would have enjoyed a bit more specific information regarding the Aluminum-Air battery especially in comparison to lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4). It seems the Al/air batteries have quite a bit more density from the 300wh/kg in the article to 1000wh/kg and potentially 2000wh/kg vs the 90-110wh/kg for Lithium...

Although the difficulty seems to be in the oxidation of the Aluminum as the Aluminum and electrolyte will react once together so when you start a cell, or cells you will start the oxidation process. There is also some efficiency issues (aluminum degrades to a gel) which it seems they have dealt with already.

I wonder how much engery it takes to reprocess the product of the reaction - thinking about the life cycle of this becoming a common process. I tried to look at how much energy it takes to make alumnum and could not find it, but even after the energy to mine and process the raw material (bauxite) into alumina - significant - they say that in the U.S. alone uses up to 1% of our power to separate the Aluminum from the alumina - 5.25v @ 100K to 150K Amps btw...

Exactly! Why use a one time use only battery. This is pure marketing gold for the company but absolute bull shi* for being a practical solution in an EV. Supercaps have more legs then this does. At least with that you can recharge nearly forever. The newer carbon-fibre-graphene matrix supercaps piotentially could offset the lithium type batteries. The old EESTOR ceramic caps touted a few years ago were nothing but marketing and miscalculations.

For long range driving this looks to be a good battery to have on an EV. As I understand , there is no recharging time lost, what you need it is topping up the battery with water at regualar intervals during the journey.

I could not understand then why a second Lithium IOn battery is required ?

Why can't the same Aluminium -air battery be used for shorter travel distances? Is the Aluminium- air reaction not stoppable in between ? Can somebody elaborate on this technology?